My dad's disaster

I'll never forget the call. It was three years ago. I had been in hometown just the week before. I knew things were not good. I knew V had terminal cancer, and I knew that Dad wandered. In fact he wandered off one night while we were there. It scared me to death.

At 3:30 my phone rang. V, with a shaky voice, said she guessed she would have to go to the hospital. What an opening - no details - just she thought she would have to go to the hospital. After what seemed like a million questions, she gave me the details.

Dad had gone for a walk, and it seemed he was gone too long. V decided she would get into the car to look for him. She hadn't driven in many years so her skills were limited. She located Dad and brought him home. Their garage was a small single car one attached to the house. It was tight. She got the car too close to the work bench for the drivers door to open. Apparently Dad took over. He used a piece of 4x4 lumber about a foot long as a stopping block. In his confusion, he put the car into drive instead of reverse. In the mean time V was at the front of the garage. He accelerated so fast that the car jumped over the block. V was in the path. She suffered a huge bruise (as it turned out later) on her thigh.

The thoughts racing through my mind was that there was no way I could get there before 8 pm. Here in Megapolis's suburb, the "rush hour" had already begun and wouldn't stop until 6. I was completely beside myself. She did tell me that she had called 911, but no one else but me.

Fortunately when we were there the week before, we met their neighbor. She noted that Dad was getting so much worse, and she was very concerned. Her mother in law had just recently passed away from dementia, and we compared notes. She gave me her telephone number. I used it that July afternoon. This angel went over and stayed with Dad until V got into a room. Dad stayed in the room with V that night. He couldn't be trusted to go home. He would have gotten in the car to go back to the hospital and would have at the very least gotten lost.

She went back the next day to check on them. Then we knew we had to go get my dad. It was so sad. I sat in the back seat with my dad in the passenger seat. We watched him looking out the window knowing he would never see hometrown again.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about that first week.